Pac 12 basketball

[Monte Carlo Wildcat]

remember Arizona has the weakest SOS #134
(cannot wait to hear all the uofa fucks to comment on this)
ASU top 3 in the PAC, SOS. But I am fucking tired of losing close games.
Not to make excuses but Allen did walk and there was a no call.

This comment shows your true lack of understanding of college basketball. Lol congrats

 

[douggie]

remember Arizona has the weakest SOS #134
(cannot wait to hear all the uofa fucks to comment on this)
ASU top 3 in the PAC, SOS. But I am fucking tired of losing close games.
Not to make excuses but Allen did walk and there was a no call.

Ken Pom has Arizona 11th which is the highest ratings for any Pac12 team. Next is USC at #23.

 

[SFGRTB]

Maybe we should just give the team with the most road wins the number 1 seed, and trickle down from there.

 

[FORKWDEVIL]

Ken Pom has Arizona 11th which is the highest ratings for any Pac12 team. Next is USC at #23.

It was highlighted on Fox Sports.

 

[FORKWDEVIL]

This comment shows your true lack of understanding of college basketball. Lol congrats

It was posted during the game dickfinger! Don Maclean even quoted it.

 

[FORKWDEVIL]

We need the ball in Kadeems hands in the final seconds. Not york; thats twice he ends the game with an empty posession.

Nice avatar you homo!

 

[LASports96]

Embarrassing road trip for USC. The Oregon trip is really tough, but that was just bad basketball. Come on guys.

Also, somehow USC a 42% 3 pt shooting team coming into this week, shot: 14-52 (27%) in Oregon. So I don't know if to just chalk it up to missing shots or shitty play. Probably a little bit of both.

 

[LASports96]

And almost feel like we have to sweep the Washington schools at home next week. I know Enfield is gonna be on that ass in practice all week. We're going to find out the mental toughness of this team now.

 

[CatsTopPac]

remember Arizona has the weakest SOS #134
(cannot wait to hear all the uofa fucks to comment on this)
ASU top 3 in the PAC, SOS. But I am fucking tired of losing close games.
Not to make excuses but Allen did walk and there was a no call.

At the end of the day, the fact remains; all we were hoping for is that ASU would be good enough to help on road trips by forcing teams to prep for more than AZ. Talk about SOS all you want, but we've played the same Pac teams, and ASU has done nothing more than be the usual doormat. Your one Pac win was at home against WSU.

You completely fucked yourself out of a good start with a strong SOS. Now you sit at 11-9 and in danger of playing yourselves out of yet another March. SOS doesn't mean shit if you don't win.

 

[Forever]

Go Bears! GG Zona...hell of a game

 

[SFGRTB]

Gary Payton was a fucking monster today. Holy hell:

22 Pts, 15 Rbs, 8 Ast, 4 Stl, 1 Blk, 10-17 FG (0-3 3pt). 5 TOs though. Scrub.

 

[SFGRTB]

Only thing that kept USC in this game was the outrageous foul discrepancy. 25 fouls to 16. Five OSU players had 4 fouls. USC shot 38 FTs! Only made 24 for a 63% clip. OSU shot 18-21.

 

[LASports96]

USC the last 2 season is THE WORST foul shooting team I've ever seen. It's unbelievably frustrating. Hella ironic too because Coach Enfield has the highest career FT% in NCAA history for a player. (or he did)

 

[FORKWDEVIL]

At the end of the day, the fact remains; all we were hoping for is that ASU would be good enough to help on road trips by forcing teams to prep for more than AZ. Talk about SOS all you want, but we've played the same Pac teams, and ASU has done nothing more than be the usual doormat. Your one Pac win was at home against WSU.

You completely fucked yourself out of a good start with a strong SOS. Now you sit at 11-9 and in danger of playing yourselves out of yet another March. SOS doesn't mean shit if you don't win.

Agreed. We are fucked this season. We fucked ourselves by losing games we should have won. I am just stating the SOS fact and Monte Dick for brains is whining.

 

[SFGRTB]

Utah goes up to Washington and beats the dogs. Lol.

Oregon and dogs tied for 1st. 6-way tie for 3rd.

 

[CatsTopPac]

Agreed. We are fucked this season. We fucked ourselves by losing games we should have won. I am just stating the SOS fact and Monte Dick for brains is whining.

Let me break down MCW's point to you.

You point out that AZ has a bad SOS. First of all, at 134, you're talking about non-con. So let's start there. Miller definitely tries to balance his non-con schedule out to have some pushovers, some strong mid-tier teams, and a couple/few top ranked opponents (counting non-con tourneys). Some teams want all pushovers, and others want to throw as difficult of a schedule out as possible. It really just depends. Lute used to like the toughest schedule possible, but that backfired sometimes when it was a gauntlet and the losses piled up. Conversely, a non-con full of cupcakes (see Cuse in the recent past), doesn't help either. I like his balanced approach. But, that can also backfire. The reason why is very simple: it's impossible to predict three years out, how the teams you schedule will be when you play them. A couple years ago our non-con looked really weak, and was ranked as such going in. Turns out, it ended up being top 20. Great, but there is no way to predict that. This year, it's the opposite. Usually, Gonzaga is a top ten team. How was Miller supposed to know 4 years ago (or whenever) that they would be unranked right now? UNLV is usually a very strong MWC team, and this year they suck. LBSU has been solid the last few years and now they suck. We got a fairly weak draw for our non-con tourney this year (after playing in amazing tourneys the last few years), wanted to play MSU, but ran into a Prov team that was better than expected. It goes like that. If Miller was only taking 1 and 1s against teams that are always weak, and never getting in any good tourneys, then you would have a point. But Miller goes out and gets home and homes against teams like Florida, Gonzaga, Michigan, SDSU, UNLV, Oklahoma, BYU, etc. He has more coming against Gonzaga, Michigan State, etc. He's played against Duke, Kansas, SDSU, and Providence in non-con tourneys. Those are all currently or in the very recent past some very very stiff competition. Clearly if the SOS isn't strong, it's not for a lack of Miller going out and trying to get solid competition. So when you being up SOS, some of that is completely out of Miller's hands.

That being said, you can get away with not having a solid non-con SOS if you play in a really tough conference. This is actually a strategy in the past for Coach K and Boeheim. They used to not really play too many tough non-con games (especially out of state) because they knew that their conference SOS was going to make their overall SOS a non issues. As stated above, Miller doesn't go that route, but it still helps that the Pac is so strong. You mentioned a #134 non-con SOS? AZ's overall SOS is now at #97 and climbing because of how strong the Pac is. By March, I wouldn't be surprised of it was close to top 50, and no one cares anymore. It's not the same as Gonzaga who always finishes the year with a SOS around 100 because they play in the WCC.

Finally, SOS is only one metric. There are like a half dozen to a dozen different measurements to qualify teams (depending on who you ask). So when you bring up SOS (aside from what I've mentioned above), you are only bringing up one metric. You previously brought up SOS and RPI against AZ, until AZ's RPI is now top 30. And as others have mentioned, they're high in KenPom. They're also #16 in BPI. They're #11 in Sagarin. These are all different metrics that use different formulas, and people use all of these and more to place teams.

So when you just say that AZ's non-con SOS was #134, we're left to wonder if you are just looking for the worst stat you can find on AZ, or if you realize that there is so much more that there is to consider for determining AZ's value right now. If you did know that there are so many other factors than non-con SOS (especially given that Miller tries to get a tough schedule, can't control other teams, and has a strong Pac SOS) then you'd realize that saying their non-con SOS is #134 is essentially irrelevant. That's why MCW and others are coming after you. You're bringing up a very insignificant stat, and using it to call AZ's ranking into question. Meanwhile, you are conveniently forgetting all of the other rankings and formulas that all have AZ relatively high.

The other thing that makes this interesting is the fact that the only category that ASU is high in so happens to be SOS. Coincidence? But as I mentioned, a high SOS only means something if you win the games. That makes it even more humorous when you bring up the one category that ASU is doing well in, and the worst one for AZ. The funny part is that it's not doing anything for ASU, and really not hurting AZ. But you're still all over it.

 

[FORKWDEVIL]

Let me break down MCW's point to you.

You point out that AZ has a bad SOS. First of all, at 134, you're talking about non-con. So let's start there. Miller definitely tries to balance his non-con schedule out to have some pushovers, some strong mid-tier teams, and a couple/few top ranked opponents (counting non-con tourneys). Some teams want all pushovers, and others want to throw as difficult of a schedule out as possible. It really just depends. Lute used to like the toughest schedule possible, but that backfired sometimes when it was a gauntlet and the losses piled up. Conversely, a non-con full of cupcakes (see Cuse in the recent past), doesn't help either. I like his balanced approach. But, that can also backfire. The reason why is very simple: it's impossible to predict three years out, how the teams you schedule will be when you play them. A couple years ago our non-con looked really weak, and was ranked as such going in. Turns out, it ended up being top 20. Great, but there is no way to predict that. This year, it's the opposite. Usually, Gonzaga is a top ten team. How was Miller supposed to know 4 years ago (or whenever) that they would be unranked right now? UNLV is usually a very strong MWC team, and this year they suck. LBSU has been solid the last few years and now they suck. We got a fairly weak draw for our non-con tourney this year (after playing in amazing tourneys the last few years), wanted to play MSU, but ran into a Prov team that was better than expected. It goes like that. If Miller was only taking 1 and 1s against teams that are always weak, and never getting in any good tourneys, then you would have a point. But Miller goes out and gets home and homes against teams like Florida, Gonzaga, Michigan, SDSU, UNLV, Oklahoma, BYU, etc. He has more coming against Gonzaga, Michigan State, etc. He's played against Duke, Kansas, SDSU, and Providence in non-con tourneys. Those are all currently or in the very recent past some very very stiff competition. Clearly if the SOS isn't strong, it's not for a lack of Miller going out and trying to get solid competition. So when you being up SOS, some of that is completely out of Miller's hands.

That being said, you can get away with not having a solid non-con SOS if you play in a really tough conference. This is actually a strategy in the past for Coach K and Boeheim. They used to not really play too many tough non-con games (especially out of state) because they knew that their conference SOS was going to make their overall SOS a non issues. As stated above, Miller doesn't go that route, but it still helps that the Pac is so strong. You mentioned a #134 non-con SOS? AZ's overall SOS is now at #97 and climbing because of how strong the Pac is. By March, I wouldn't be surprised of it was close to top 50, and no one cares anymore. It's not the same as Gonzaga who always finishes the year with a SOS around 100 because they play in the WCC.

Finally, SOS is only one metric. There are like a half dozen to a dozen different measurements to qualify teams (depending on who you ask). So when you bring up SOS (aside from what I've mentioned above), you are only bringing up one metric. You previously brought up SOS and RPI against AZ, until AZ's RPI is now top 30. And as others have mentioned, they're high in KenPom. They're also #16 in BPI. They're #11 in Sagarin. These are all different metrics that use different formulas, and people use all of these and more to place teams.

So when you just say that AZ's non-con SOS was #134, we're left to wonder if you are just looking for the worst stat you can find on AZ, or if you realize that there is so much more that there is to consider for determining AZ's value right now. If you did know that there are so many other factors than non-con SOS (especially given that Miller tries to get a tough schedule, can't control other teams, and has a strong Pac SOS) then you'd realize that saying their non-con SOS is #134 is essentially irrelevant. That's why MCW and others are coming after you. You're bringing up a very insignificant stat, and using it to call AZ's ranking into question. Meanwhile, you are conveniently forgetting all of the other rankings and formulas that all have AZ relatively high.

The other thing that makes this interesting is the fact that the only category that ASU is high in so happens to be SOS. Coincidence? But as I mentioned, a high SOS only means something if you win the games. That makes it even more humorous when you bring up the one category that ASU is doing well in, and the worst one for AZ. The funny part is that it's not doing anything for ASU, and really not hurting AZ. But you're still all over it.

let me cry over my Cardinals for awhile and I will get back to you on this. I am too tired to respond. I do look for the worst in AZ just like you with ASU.

 

[CatsTopPac]

let me cry over my Cardinals for awhile and I will get back to you on this. I am too tired to respond. I do look for the worst in AZ just like you with ASU.

My condolences. I think the worst part is that you only have the Suns and ASU basketball to look forward to. But please, go on about AZ basketball.

 

[trojanfan12]

Gary Payton was a fucking monster today. Holy hell:

22 Pts, 15 Rbs, 8 Ast, 4 Stl, 1 Blk, 10-17 FG (0-3 3pt). 5 TOs though. Scrub.

That was the real difference in the game. Gary Payton Jr. came out and played like he was Gary Payton Sr.

 

[Arizona_Sting]

I've said it time and time again, I think AZ and Oregon are the best two in the conference and will separate themselves from this cluster fuck of a conference in the next few weeks.

There's also going to probably be 6-7 teams finishing 8-8 or 9-7 in conference play. This is nuts.